Sat, 07 Sep 2002

Response to Lawrence Lessig's talk at OSCON 2002

Or why the "Open Source Movement" is likely to fail
where it matters the most.

In the discussion below, the Open Source vs. Proprietary
distinction is made for all forms of "Content Creation and
Transmission"; thus other than computer software I include text,
audio and video as well as data.

There is a moral high ground that the Open Source Movement can
take and does take when it compares itself to Propreitary
Systems. The OSM is fighting for freedom while the PS are
fighting for control. The OSM is the "future" which is being
restrained by the PS which is the "past". The OSM is young and
dynamic people who are "going out there and trying to change the
world" while the PS is old "sticks in the mud" who want to keep
to the old patterns. Unfortunately, for the OSM the governments,
legislatures and courts of the day are (by and large) sticking
behind or side-by-side with the PS; even in countries with strong
democratic constitutions and institutions. This is a big failure
for the OSM and one should try to understand why.

One possible reason is that government is run by old people
and they stick with other old people (actual age is not what is
relevant here; this age being "in the mind").

Another possible reason is that the OSM is spending so much
time "doing things" that they haven't spent enough time "fighting
the fight". They care more about technology than about
causes.

While both the above reasons have their merits, I would like
to present a third possible reason that has not (to my knowledge)
been adequately discussed.

Fair-minded constitutional institutions such as governments
and the courts do intervene when a large section the
population they govern is under threat; this threat could be
physical, economic or even ideological. Most democratic
institutions are, however, only tuned to react when this
"large-ness" criterion is met. When a much smaller population,
that is considered "special" in one way or another is under
threat, the same institutions do not in general react
unless there is power-play at work. By power-play I mean
powerful business or military or other extra-constitutional
interests. To give an example AIDS was not considered a major
health issue by the governments of many countries when it was
thought to affect only the gay male population or the sexually
prolific (such as "sex workers"). In contrast, when the business
interests of large corporations or banks (which at some level
represent a very small number of individuals---i. e. the
share-holders) are under threat, the government and financial
institutions of the country where these coporations have major
operations will often provide succour; power-play has come into
action.

The nature of the OSM is that it is a movement of the
content-creators, for the content-creators and by the
content-creators. While some among this movement may argue that
they are working for the common good, it is not so until it is
perceived to be so by the common person. In fact, some
hackers are pretty open about the fact that they wouldn't mind if
the freedom to examine the source were somehow restricted to
"those who can do something with it". The collection of all
content-creators (those within the OSM as well as those with the
PS) is perhaps no more than one or two percent of the entire
population of the "developed world" and much less than that
elsewhere.

The "web" was supposed to "change all this". Everyone was
supposed to spring up and be creative and post their ideas with
free-flowing discussion and code abounding. Actually,
book-reading and education as envisaged in the Gutenberg
revolution was supposed to achieve something similar. The one
difference between the Gutenberg revolution and the current one
is that today far more people in the "developed world" have the
economic (time and money) freedom that is necessary to
participate in this creative surge. But to many people's
disappointment it has not happened.

The "Internet" has become, like so many media before it, a
"spectator sport". It does not matter that you shout from the
roof-tops to urge people to take a football to the local
playground or even go and cheer the local school team, to enjoy
themselves without having to spend any money. Most people will
opt to go to the big stadium to see Manchester United vs. Arsenal
paying money (probably not a lot but infinitely more than they
would have by playing themselves!). No one can argue that this is
"wrong". It is similarly not "wrong" of people to use their
computer as a "television with bells and whistles". To an
"insider" it just feels "stupid". In this "outsider" manner of
"use" it matters not to the spectator what is inside the
television and who produced it and who made the money as long as
it works and doesn't cost too much.

All those people who, by training, education, ideology,
indoctrination, what-have-you, will not participate in the
creative freedom that is possible (with the advent of
personal computers and the telecommunication network) are also
unaffected by the war that the OSM sometimes claims to be
fighting on their behalf. If the PS were to "win" and all
machines were able to read files stored in proprietary formats
which the user had "paid for", those complaining about the
proprietary nature of the format and the restricted nature of
access to it would sound like someone accusing the CD seller of
being too restrictive since he has only a floppy drive on his
computer.

The OSM has two ways to "win the war" against the PS. One way
is to acquire enough "power" to engage in "power-play"; with big
corporations lining up behind the OSM this may actually happen.
To my mind this is a way of losing the war not winning it.

There is a bigger dream. One that will probably be more
difficult to achieve. That finally, in this case the creative
revolution that was to be unleashed by Gutenberg will actually
take place. That the democratic institutions will find that the
PS are actually hindering the creative freedom of a
large section of their population.

That is the great GNU hope:

The spectator will start to play.

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